


lord knows it would be the first time

by thescuttlebugg



Series: the luck I've had [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alpha Marinette, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, F/M, Feral Behavior, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Omega Adrien, Pansexual Adrien, Pheromones, Pining, Sexual Confusion, getting the ladybugs and the bees talk from your kwami for zero fun and absolutely no profit, hurt/some comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8561755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescuttlebugg/pseuds/thescuttlebugg
Summary: “Come on,” Plagg says in that same weird tone. Adrien still can’t place it. “Trust me, okay? You’re not my first rodeo. I’ve gotten a lot of Chat Noirs through this.” 
Oh. The tone. It’s . . . sympathy? 
That can’t be right, Adrien thinks, hiding his face in his arms. He wants to cry. He wants Ladybug to come back. Why’d she run off like that? Why’d she--why’d she get in so close and then leave him?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest, I wasn’t going to write any more for this particular idea but over half the comments on the last fic asked me to plus I got some Mean Ideas and then I soooomehow found the strength to make Adrien s u f f e r. SOMEHOW. >__>
> 
> I'm undecided as to if I’ll do a part three or not, so for now I’m just going to mark the series as complete as-is.

Adrien stumbles into his bedroom through the window and nearly goes face-first into the carpet. Plagg falls out of his ring and is immediately grabbing and dragging at him. 

“Come on, kid,” Plagg says. Adrien doesn’t want to get off the carpet. But also the carpet feels _awful_. 

He whines. Plagg tugs harder at his hair. 

“I know,” Plagg says, in a weird tone Adrien can’t quite place. “Come on, get up. Get into your pajamas, those really soft ones you like so much. You’ll feel better.” 

“Don’t wanna,” Adrien manages, not moving at all. His heart’s beating too fast. His throat hurts. _He_ hurts. And he hates the way his voice sounds--like a whiny, miserable little whimper. He’s not a little _kid_. 

“Come on,” Plagg says in that same weird tone. Adrien still can’t place it. “Trust me, okay? You’re not my first rodeo. I’ve gotten a lot of Chat Noirs through this.” 

Oh. The tone. It’s . . . sympathy? 

That can’t be right, Adrien thinks, hiding his face in his arms. He wants to cry. He wants Ladybug to come back. Why’d she run off like that? Why’d she--why’d she get in so close and then _leave him_? 

Ladybug doesn’t like him. Ladybug doesn’t like his scent. Ladybug thinks his pheromones are weird, or worse, she thinks they’re _gross_. Ladybug doesn’t want to be anywhere near a stupid, stupid cat like him. Ladybug doesn’t want anything to do with him when he’s all messed up like this, feverish and slow and stupid and too weak to either keep up with or support her. 

Ladybug doesn’t _like_ him. 

Yeah. Okay. He might be crying. 

He’s so _stupid_. 

“Kid,” Plagg says, pushing his face against his cheek. “Hey. Kid. C’mooon, get uuuuup.” 

Adrien tries to answer him, but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is this pathetic mewling sound. His fingers curl against the carpet as a restless thrumming moves through him, but he can’t bring himself to move. He makes the mewling sound again, louder. Plagg shoves his face into his face and _purrs_ , which is--which is terrible, he is so pathetic and weird and such a stupid, stupid cat that Plagg is actually _pitying him for it_. 

_“Kid,”_ Plagg stresses, and Adrien _yowls_. 

He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t mean to, but it feels _good_. Like something’s all stopped up in his throat, crushing his lungs and his heart, and letting it out relieves the pressure. Before he can think better of it he does it again, louder. And then again. And _again_. And--

“Shhhhh!” Plagg hisses, clapping tiny paws over his mouth like that could even do anything to muffle him. Adrien’s next yowl turns out a sob anyway. “She can’t _hear_ you, dummy, but if you keep that up your dad’s staff might!” 

Adrien yowls again. He can’t _not_. It comes out quiet this time, though, weak and low and soft with distress. He’s not sure if he’s more mortified or heartbroken. 

He’s calling. Like a _cat_. Like he thinks--like some part of him actually thinks--

“She wouldn’t come anyway,” he croaks, nails digging into the carpet again. Plagg shoves in tight against his neck. 

“Get up,” Plagg demands, pulling at his ear.

Adrien gets up. 

“Closet!” Plagg demands, swooping over to it. 

Adrien goes to the closet. 

“Pajamas!” Plagg demands, grabbing the sleeve of Adrien’s softest pair and dragging it off the hanger. 

Adrien changes into the pajamas and puts his clothes with the rest of his dirty laundry. Plagg zips around his head impatiently for the entire process, practically thrumming with energy. He hasn’t even asked for food. Adrien feels pathetic. He should get him something. 

“Den,” Plagg demands, looping around him again. 

“I want Ladybug,” Adrien says, burying his face in his hands. She left. She left _him_. 

“I _know_ ,” Plagg says in frustration, then starts dragging at his sleeve. “Den! C’mon! You dumb kid, it’s not gonna get better if you don’t _do_ something. Move your _tail_.” 

“I want her,” Adrien says. She’d leaned in so close and _breathed in_ and he’d thought--he’d thought-- “I _miss_ her.” 

“I know, kitten,” Plagg says helplessly. Adrien cries a little more, then follows Plagg to the bed and starts rearranging the pillows and blankets. He knows he’s just being stupid and oversensitive. It’s his heat--it’s making him emotional and needy and weird. And he’s _already_ emotional and needy and weird. 

He thinks he’d die if Ladybug actually saw him like this. He thinks he’d never be able to look her in the eye _again_. 

He’s only had a few heats. He hadn’t even started having them yet when he met her. 

Another way to put that: she’s the one he’s been missing during his heats for as long as he’s been having them. He’s always wanted her with him for them. He’s never--the _calling_ is new. He’s never done that before. Never felt this bad or alone or abandoned before. 

But he’s also never been so close to Ladybug when his heat was coming on, either. And _she’d_ never . . . she hadn’t ever . . . 

She’d been in so close that her nose had brushed his throat. She’d been in that close and she’d _breathed in_. 

She’d been in so close that she’d been all _he’d_ been able to smell. 

And then she’d _left him_. 

Adrien buries himself in his haphazard, half-hearted excuse for a nest. He tucks one pillow between his knees and wraps his arms around another and pretends someone big enough to hold him is here with him. He tries to think of people _not_ Ladybug. Just--some other alpha. Really he feels like he’d rather have Nino than anyone not Ladybug, as sad and lonely as he feels right now, but everybody always says other omegas’ pheromones aren’t as soothing, so he’s not sure it’d work. 

He wishes it would. Nino’d understand. Nino’d probably understand even the stuff Adrien can’t explain. Nino’s probably in heat now too, or at least almost; Adrien’s been just shy of perfectly synced up with him literally since his _first_ heat. Nobody’d even noticed it was coming on until after school because he and Nino had been practically hanging off each other all day that day. 

Adrien had liked that. He wishes he could have that now. 

But it’s got to be an alpha, everyone always says, so . . . 

Chloe would come, he thinks. She wouldn’t lay still to cuddle him, but she’d at least chase away anyone he didn’t want around. Maybe Chloe could chase the staff off and Sabrina would cuddle him. Chloe wouldn’t get all alpha over a beta doing it, right? Or Kim, maybe. Adrien’s not sure if Kim would be patient enough to lay down with him either, but at least he’d be a willing distraction from the gross, uncomfortable feeling that’s spread all through him right now. And Alya’s probably got a dozen new posts drafted for the Ladyblog she’d love an excuse to sit down and read to somebody, as far as distractions go that’s pretty--no, actually, that would be a terrible one, Adrien realizes. He might end up crying again. 

He would definitely end up crying again. 

Rose would cuddle him. Rose is nice. She’d probably pet him too, if he asked, and even pretend she didn’t think it was weird if he did end up crying again. And Marinette would . . . Marinette would . . . 

Adrien doesn’t know what Marinette would do. 

He wishes she were here and _doing it_ , though. Marinette is always so amazing at everything she commits herself to, she’d do-- _something_. Something exactly right. If he can’t have Ladybug for an alpha, she’d be the next best thing. 

. . . it’d be better to have them both. They’re both really nice and really good with other alphas; he doesn’t think they’d posture or fight or anything. He thinks they could share. If Adrien hadn’t come home after tonight’s fight . . . if he’d just fed Plagg and re-transformed, and then if Chat Noir had crawled in Marinette’s bedroom window, and if Ladybug would come when Chat Noir called and . . . and . . . 

Adrien buries a whine in his pillow. 

They could. They could hold his hands, maybe. Give him something to hold onto. Maybe. Maybe lay down on either side of him, pen him in between them. He’d feel safe between Ladybug and Marinette, he knows. He’d _be_ safe there. 

Maybe they’d. Maybe one of them would. Maybe they’d _both_ \--

Maybe they’d pet him, if he asked. 

Maybe one of them would put her hand on the back of his neck. 

Adrien whines again. Plagg strokes a velvet-soft little paw down the side of his face. The pajamas feel better than his jeans. The bed feels better than the carpet. Plagg wasn’t wrong. _Adrien_ doesn’t feel better, though. Adrien feels sweaty and gross and pathetic and _sad_. 

“Shhh,” Plagg hushes, stroking his face again. Something about the gesture reminds Adrien very vaguely of his mother, or maybe of his father before his mother went away. It doesn’t seem very Plagg-like at all. He waits to be bitten, or pinched, or teased, or--or he doesn’t know. 

Plagg doesn’t do any of those things, though. 

Plagg’s paws are so soft. _Plagg_ is so soft, a warm little presence that somehow doesn’t overheat him even though everything else feels like too much. Adrien mewls very, very quietly and Plagg purrs in return and keeps petting his face with tiny little paws. Adrien cups him in his hands to pull him closer, and Plagg tucks himself in closer still and purrs _loud_. 

“I know it hurts,” Plagg murmurs. “I know it’s lonely. You’ll be okay.” 

“I _miss_ her,” Adrien sobs. Ladybug smelled like a garden; like flowers and plants and clean rain and warm, warm things. He didn’t think alphas smelled like that, before he met her. 

“I know,” Plagg says, his voice gone a little distant. “I understand.” 

Adrien curls in small on himself; in small around Plagg. Plagg drags his rough little tongue across his cheek. Adrien’s not sure if it’s a sign of affection or self-defense to avoid getting too tear-soaked. He’s not really crying anymore, exactly, he just . . . hasn’t entirely _stopped_ , either. 

“Plagg,” he chokes uselessly, trying not to grip him too tight. 

“I miss her too,” Plagg says, tone no less distant. He flutters out of Adrien’s hands and Adrien whimpers reflexively; Plagg’s back before the sound even comes out properly, though, dragging the sheets up higher over him. “The Black Cat always misses the Ladybug. That’s just how it is.” 

“Always?” Adrien asks, trying to blink the wetness out of his eyes as he looks up at the other. Plagg looks tired, and maybe a little resigned. He tucks the corner of the sheet in under Adrien’s side. 

“When we’re not together, yeah,” he says. “We’re partners too, you know.” 

“Does Ladybug’s kwami--are they--” Adrien hesitates, not sure how to ask, and Plagg sighs at him and pets his face with a tiny velvet paw again. 

“Tikki,” he says. “Her name’s Tikki. She’s my partner.” 

“Does she love you?” Adrien asks. His voice comes out shaky. His vision’s still a little blurry from the tears. Plagg nestles into the crook of his neck again. 

“You could start there, yeah,” he replies quietly. Adrien feels a twinge of jealousy. Immortality with Ladybug still wouldn’t be enough time, he thinks. 

He’s always wanted her to notice him more--to notice him like an alpha notices an omega. He’s pretty, isn’t he? He wouldn’t be much use as a model if he weren’t. And lots of alphas and betas in his school like his pheromones--even some _omegas_ have told him they do, which has been a secret source of both embarrassment and pride for him since the first time Nino’d been so eager to scent each other like they were pack. And Chat Noir and Ladybug are partners. Friends, even. She likes him. 

She just doesn’t _notice_ him. 

Except tonight. Tonight he thought . . . the way she’d leaned in like that after the fight, and the funny little spike in her own pheromones as she had . . . 

Maybe it hadn’t meant she’d hated how his heat pheromones smelled. Maybe it’d meant she’d thought they smelled _good_. 

He hopes it does. 

. . . he wishes it did. 

“I wish--I wish Ladybug would come,” Adrien stutters out as quietly as he can, half-hiding his face against the pillow as an unpleasant shudder goes through him. Plagg purrs more aggressively, rubbing into his throat before shifting to curl up on the back of his neck, a warm little weight there that makes the tension in Adrien’s muscles at least start to relax. 

Plagg starts grooming his hair. Adrien wants to cry again. Wants to _call_ again. Wants Plagg to never ever stop what he’s doing. Wants his _partner_. Ladybug would take care of him. 

Except Ladybug doesn’t want to take care of him. 

Ladybug leaned in close and breathed in deep and _ran away_. 

Adrien buries his face in his pillow with a sob. Plagg purrs louder. 

“I got you, kid,” he says, his purr rumbling through his tiny chest. “You’ll be alright.” 

Plagg isn’t wrong, Adrien knows. This is all stuff he could handle, normally. He could handle _worse_ than this, normally. His heat’s just making him stupid and sad and--and _stupid_. 

Knowing that doesn’t make it any better, though. Doesn’t help. Doesn’t . . . doesn’t . . . 

_“Plagg,”_ he sobs, voice practically a keen as he wraps his arms tighter around the pillow; tries to dig in with claws he doesn’t have right now. Claws he really wishes he _did_ have right now, except if he did then Plagg’s own tiny pinprick ones wouldn’t be kneading at the back of his neck and nothing could be worse than that, right now. 

“I know, kitten,” Plagg murmurs, low and soothing. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Adrien wants to believe him. 

It’s really hard to, remembering the sharp little almost-sound that Ladybug had made against his throat before jerking back from him; the way she’d stared wide-eyed at him for that one long, long second where his words had all dried up and heat had rushed into his face and he’d thought--where he’d thought maybe, maybe, maybe _finally_ \-- 

The way she’d left, and left him there.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://thescuttlebugg.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
